“Remember, Remember, the 5th of November!”

Thanks to all who came down to the Institute of Directors on the 5th, and helped the event go off with a bang! It was great to greet so many new faces, and be able to introduce them to everyone. If you want to look at the pics from the evening, then check out our Facebook album
We had some great questions from the audience. What was initially a presentation from the BIMaaS founders & partners; became a free-flowing hotbed of ideas & answers, between hosts and guests alike. We were able to lay to rest concerns all concerns that were aired on the night. Such as our process with conflicting file types, which is handled by IFC’s capabilities of converting other formats. So we thought these points could be documented here:

What’s in it for us?

This is a particularly frequent question when working with open source software that’s free to download. Well, it’s true, our software is free. Our business model is based on offering 3 key paid services. Configuration, hosting, and support.

Configuration– The first step is setting you up with BIMaaS. We can do this for you; import all the data you need, create user hierarchies, etc.

Hosting– Part of the reason BIMaaS is so effective is because it is a Common Data Environment. A central repository on a server that is called upon as and when it is needed. Larger organisations / projects may already have sophisticated enough servers in place they may want to use, however others may want to outsource this element.

Support – BIMaaS was built by experienced developers that pulled together many components such as BIM server, BIM surfer, Open BIM, etc. Certainly not least of all, our dev team are certified WSO2 developers. A much sought after qualification that allows them to work & improve on WSO2 middleware. Middleware that is required to cope with the magnitudes of complexity that ebay & Boeing generate. We offer our team’s support to anyone who may need it. Equally, if you’ve got the dev’s to spare to support you own system, don’t worry about it.

Is there sufficient support with the freely available software to help get up and running?

Yes. If you know what you doing, it’s all here on BIMaaS.uk & on our Github. However, we normally find that each use case is different. Each time there are a significant amount of nuances and details that need to be tweaked for each project. So we tend to take a more bespoke approach. While incorporating agile methodologies, we will also clearly define all client requirements via an intensive 2 week hot house.

How is it available?There’s no license fees, so it is freely available to download. That said, we’re confident that we can add significant value to the service worth paying for. Whether that be the configuration, hosting, support, or all 3.

How can 3D printing be implemented?3D printing isn’t an out-of-the-box feature just yet. That being said, if it were an urgent requirement then it could be discussed during configuration talks for future implementation. Generally speaking, 3D printing requires model formats that’s are more simplistic than the likes of the ones required for saving BIM models. Therefore consolidating that information down to a printable format is within the reach of those who need it.